Photo/Illutration A mailbox at an office in Tokyo’s Minato Ward of a group that runs YamatoQ on April 9 (Shingo Tsuru)

Unlawful entry suspects have apologized and their conspiracy-minded group is under a wider police investigation, but the apparent target of their anti-vaccine protests continues to face harassment.

Tokyo police arrested the four suspects at a health care clinic in Shibuya Ward, where about a dozen maskless members of the YamatoQ group had barged in on the morning of April 7, scared staff and customers, and refused to leave.

The uninvited visitors were upset about the COVID-19 vaccination shots provided by the clinic.

After their arrest on April 7, some of the suspects defended their actions, saying that “providing vaccine inoculations is an act of murder, so we went in to stop it.”

But some of them have since repented. Police sources quoted one of them as saying, “I am sorry that I could not stop the group’s action.”

YamatoQ, which reportedly calls itself the Japanese wing of U.S. conspiracy cult QAnon, has been waging a campaign against the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

It has held anti-vaccine rallies and continues to spread misinformation that “the coronavirus itself does not exist” and “the vaccinations are part of plans to decrease the population.”

YamatoQ is now saying that the four suspects “were unlawfully arrested.”

“The arrests were very unjust and an apparent repression of the people’s activities,” the group said on its website.

The Metropolitan Police Department on April 9 searched an office in Minato Ward of an association that runs YamatoQ and other locations. Police seized dozens of items, such as computers and mobile phones.

The Shibuya clinic said it has received anonymous letters protesting the “unjust arrests” almost every day.

It said that fliers and letters had been sent to the clinic since late March, carrying such messages as, “Vaccines are illegal,” “It is homicide” and “Stop vaccinations.”

On April 6, the day before the incident, the Metropolitan Police Department informed the clinic about “suspicious activity” and asked to speak with the clinic’s director.

Investigators were expected to visit the clinic the following day, but the YamatoQ members showed up first, at 9:30 a.m.

That was the time the clinic was scheduled to give its first inoculations of the day.

While spouting off about the “murderous act” of giving inoculations, the members also demanded to see clinic’s director.

A person related to the clinic said the intruders effectively occupied the clinic’s waiting room, which is the size of 10 tatami mats.

At the time, about 10 patients, including a child, were in the waiting room. Some were scared and went home, the person said.

YamatoQ members also tried to enter a consultation room, but workers pushed the door from the inside and kept the conspiracy theorists at bay.

A window of a room for feverish outpatients was left open for ventilation purposes, and some of the YamatoQ members peered into the room from the outside.

Around 9:50 p.m., police arrived in response to the clinic’s emergency call, and they tried in vain for an hour to get the YamatoQ members to leave the premises.

Later, around 40 additional officers arrived and arrested the four members who remained inside the clinic.

It is unclear why YamatoQ targeted that specific clinic.

The person related to the clinic said the group likely chose it because it is small.

“I understand that they have something they want to say. But entering the inside rooms of the clinic and scaring children does not make any sense,” the person said.

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